Find out what's happening behind the scenes in the organisation that maintains Scotland's land and property registers.

Land register application API – public beta

Discover how you can help us to improve our new digital service.

Blog by Scott Clarke, Product Owner at Registers of Scotland.

RoS is pleased to announce that the Land Register (LR) application API Service has progressed to public beta. This means we have developed the service to the point where it is stable and ready for a wider group of users to begin working with it to provide valuable feedback.

This free service is comprised of several parts to cater for the needs of eForms users and their IT providers, as it will be the IT provider who will integrate the end users IT systems with this service.

To assist the integration we have produced a website developers.ros.gov.uk which provides information to software developers about how to use the API. We have also created a test environment which mirrors aspects of the real service to assist integration. And finally we have the live service itself.

Prior to public beta we conducted a period of private beta. During private beta parts of the service were in the early stages of development but could demonstrate functionality, allowing us to get user feedback and make improvements.

During the initial public beta phase we are offering access to the website and test environment only. To access the test environment you will need to complete a short application.

Two firms have participated in the private beta, Altis Legal and Russel+Aitken. Altis Legal is a cloud based case management system provider to multiple conveyancing firms and Russel+Aitken is a conveyancing firm that has developed its own bespoke in-house IT solution. Both were invited to participate to provide their unique perspective on using the service to help us understand our users needs and improve the service prior to public beta.

“Our work with the RoS regarding the Land Registration API has been straightforward and gratifying. By providing clear documentation and being on hand to help at any given moment, the team at RoS have been incredibly helpful and responsive. The integration between Altis and RoS has impressed any and all customers we have shown it to so far, even in its development and pre-launch stages. We hope that our work together has more fruit to bear and that we can continue to work smartly and efficiently with the team at RoS as we have done so far.”

“The new Land Register Application API offers us the chance to substantially streamline our interaction with RoS, by integrating our own bespoke legal case management and business process automation software with the API. Critically, as well as reducing any re-keying of data, it provides interactive validation of our application submissions within our software. These are the foremost benefits we perceive, by integrating with this service.”

“We were therefore keen to participate at the private beta stage. We have found the new LR Application API web service to be well put together and the developer documentation and guidance authored by RoS, to support our implementation, is excellent. The continuous improvement model being adopted by RoS in delivering this new service is exactly the right approach, we believe, and we look forward to the new LR Application API proceeding to live. We welcome the opportunity to help shape this and further RoS services, for the benefit of our industry and, most of all, our clients.”

John King, Business development director at Registers of Scotland

“The collaborative effort by RoS and our stakeholders to progress this service to public beta is a good example of how products and services are being developed during our business transformation. The focus has been on iterative design and feedback to ensure we deliver a service that meets the changing needs of our customers. Not only is the first external public beta we have carried out as part of our business transformation it is also the first API we have offered to our customers. APIs will allow our customers to bridge the gap between their IT systems and the services RoS offers. This is a significant step towards our goal of digital by default and is one example of how we are working with customers to make new and existing services more efficient and convenient to use.

We look forward to hearing your suggestions for improving this product. If you would like to provide input into the development of our products across the digital transformation program I encourage you to join our user experience panel”

The success of this product and its progress to live will be driven by your feedback which can be sent to beta-feedback@ros.gov.uk.